In Past Show

About Mary Reid Kelley

Drawing from historical literature, drama, and events—and channeling them through a decidedly feminist interpretation—Mary Reid Kelley makes bawdy and beautiful black-and-white videos, drawings, and collages. Her videos are a combination of live action and animation and star the artist herself, in every role, disguised by elaborate costuming and makeup, and against visually rich background settings. Her husband films her, and then edits her various parts together into a coherent whole. Performance allows Kelley to encompass her broad interests in a single work. As she describes, “I realized that I was desperate to enact the characters that were the forces behind my 2D work, and that in doing so, all my ‘non-art’ loves like literature and costume and wordplay could be rolled up into a time-based work that functioned like a shout-y, rambunctious, emotionally incontinent painting.”

American, b. 1979, Greenville, South Carolina, based in Saratoga Springs, New York